Powell's Presentation
It was like something out of Beckett
By Robert Fisk
Sources, foreign intelligence sources, "our sources," defectors,
sources, sources, sources. Colin Powell's terror talk to the United
Nations Security Council yesterday sounded like one of those
government-inspired reports on the front page of The New York Times -
where it will most certainly be treated with due reverence in this
morning's edition. It was a bit like heating up old soup. Haven't we
heard most of this stuff before? Should one trust the man? General
Powell, I mean, not Saddam.
Certainly we don't trust Saddam but Secretary of State Powell's
presentation was a mixture of awesomely funny recordings of Iraqi
Republican Guard telephone intercepts à la Samuel Beckett that just
might have been some terrifying little proof that Saddam really is
conning the UN inspectors again, and some ancient material on the
Monster of Baghdad's all too well known record of beastliness. I am
still waiting to hear the Arabic for the State Department's translation
of "Okay Buddy" - "Consider it done, Sir" - this from the Republican
Guard's "Captain Ibrahim", for heaven's sake - and some dinky
illustrations of mobile bio-labs whose lorries and railway trucks were
in such perfect condition that they suggested the Pentagon didn't have
much idea of the dilapidated state of Saddam's army.
It was when we went back to Halabja and human rights abuses and all
Saddam's old sins, as recorded by the discredited Unscom team, that we
started eating the old soup again. Jack Straw may have thought all this
"the most powerful and authoritative case" but when we were forced to
listen to Iraq's officer corps communicating by phone - "yeah", "yeah",
"yeah?", "yeah..." - it was impossible not to ask oneself if Colin
Powell had really considered the effect this would have on the outside
world.
>From time to time, the words "Iraq: Failing To Disarm - Denial and
Deception" appeared on the giant video screen behind General Powell.
Was this a CNN logo, some of us wondered? But no, it was CNN's sister
channel, the US Department of State.
Because Colin Powell is supposed to be the good cop to the Bush-
Rumsfeld bad cop routine, one wanted to believe him. The Iraqi
officer's telephoned order to his subordinate - "remove 'nerve agents'
whenever it comes up in the wireless instructions" - looked as if the
Americans had indeed spotted a nasty new little line in Iraqi
deception. But a dramatic picture of a pilotless Iraqi aircraft capable
of spraying poison chemicals turned out to be the imaginative work of a
Pentagon artist.
And when General Powell started blathering on about "decades'' of
contact between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, things went wrong for the
Secretary of State. Al-Qa'ida only came into existence five years ago,
since Bin Laden - "decades" ago - was working against the Russians for
the CIA, whose present day director was sitting grave-faced behind
General Powell. And Colin Powell's new version of his President's State
of the Union lie - that the "scientists" interviewed by UN inspectors
had been Iraqi intelligence agents in disguise - was singularly
unimpressive. The UN talked to scientists, the new version went, but
they were posing for the real nuclear and bio boys whom the UN wanted
to talk to. General Powell said America was sharing its information
with the UN inspectors but it was clear yesterday that much of what he
had to say about alleged new weapons development - the decontamination
truck at the Taji chemical munitions factory, for example, the
"cleaning" of the Ibn al-Haythem ballistic missile factory on 25
November - had not been given to the UN at the time. Why wasn't this
intelligence information given to the inspectors months ago? Didn't
General Powell's beloved UN resolution 1441 demand that all such
intelligence information should be given to Hans Blix and his lads
immediately? Were the Americans, perhaps, not being "pro-active"
enough?
The worst moment came when General Powell started talking about anthrax
and the 2001 anthrax attacks in Washington and New York, pathetically
holding up a teaspoon of the imaginary spores and - while not precisely
saying so - fraudulently suggesting a connection between Saddam Hussein
and the 2001 anthrax scare.
When the Secretary of State held up Iraq's support for the Palestinian
Hamas organisation, which has an office in Baghdad, as proof of
Saddam's support for "terror'' - there was, of course, no mention of
America's support for Israel and its occupation of Palestinian land -
the whole theatre began to collapse. There are Hamas offices in Beirut,
Damascus and Iran. Is the 82nd Airborne supposed to grind on to
Lebanon, Syria and Iran?
There was an almost macabre opening to the play when General Powell
arrived at the Security Council, cheek-kissing the delegates and
winding his great arms around them. Jack Straw fairly bounded up for
his big American hug.
Indeed, there were moments when you might have thought that the whole
chamber, with its toothy smiles and constant handshakes, contained a
room full of men celebrating peace rather than war. Alas, not so. These
elegantly dressed statesmen were constructing the framework that would
allow them to kill quite a lot of people, the monstrous Saddam perhaps,
with his cronies, but a considerable number of innocents as well. One
recalled, of course, the same room four decades ago when General
Powell's predecessor Adlai Stevenson showed photos of the ships
carrying Soviet missiles to Cuba.
Alas, today's pictures carried no such authority. And Colin Powell is
no Adlai Stevenson.
World reaction
Iraq
A "typical American show complete with stunts and special effects" was
Iraq's scathing dismissal of General Powell's presentation. Mohammed
al-Douri, above, Iraq's UN ambassador, accused the US of manufacturing
evidence and said the charges were "utterly unrelated to the truth.
"No new information was provided, merely sound recordings that cannot
be ascertained as genuine," he said. "There are incorrect allegations,
unnamed sources, unknown sources."
Lt-Gen Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam Hussein, said the satellite
pictures "proved nothing". On the allegation that Iraq had faked the
death certificate of a scientist to shield them from UN inspectors, he
added: "If [General Powell] thinks any of those scientists marked as
deceased is still in existence, let him come up with it."
Britain
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, left, praised General Powell for his
"powerful and authoritative case". He said the presentation "laid bare
the deceit practised by the regime of Saddam Hussein, and worse, the
very great danger it represents.
"Secretary Powell has set out deeply worrying reports about the
presence in Iraq of one of Osama bin Laden's lieutenants, al-Zarqawi,
and other members of al-Qaida, and their efforts to develop poisons.
"The recent discovery of the poison ricin in London has underlined
again that this is a threat which all of us face.
"Saddam is defying every one of us ... He questions our resolve and is
gambling that we will lose our nerve rather than enforce our will."
France
France called for the number of inspectors to be tripled and the
process beefed up. Dominique de Villepin, the Foreign Minister, above,
said inspections should continue but under "an enhanced regime of
inspections monitoring". Iraq must also do more to co-operate -
including allowing flights from U-2 spy planes. "The use of force can
only be a final recourse," he said.
China
China said the work of the inspectors should continue. Tang Jiaxuan,
the Foreign Minister, said immediately after General Powell's
presentation: "As long as there is still the slightest hope for
political settlement, we should exert our utmost effort to achieve
that."
Russia
Inspections should continue, Igor Ivanov, the Foreign Minister, above,
said. More study was needed of the evidence presented by General
Powell, he added. Meanwhile, inspections "must be continued".
Germany
The Powell presentation and the findings of the weapons inspectors
"have to be examined carefully", said Joschka Fischer, the Foreign
Minister. "We must continue to seek a peaceful solution."
Israel
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Foreign Minister, left, said: "We've known this
a long time. We've shared intelligence with the US, and I think the US
has shared some of that today." General Powell "laid bare the true
nature of Saddam Hussein's regime, and I think he also exposed the
great dangers ... to the region and the world".
Powell's Case
By Phylliss Bennis
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security
Council on February 5 wasn't likely to win over anyone not already on
his side. He ignored the crucial fact that in the past several days (in
Sunday's New York Times and in his February 4th briefing of UN
journalists) Hans Blix denied key components of Powell's claims.
Blix, who directs the UN inspection team in Iraq, said the UNMOVIC
inspectors have seen "no evidence" of mobile biological weapons labs,
has "no persuasive indications" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, and no evidence
of Iraq hiding and moving material used for Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD) either outside or inside Iraq. Dr. Blix also said there was no
evidence of Iraq sending scientists out of the country, of Iraqi
intelligence agents posing as scientists, of UNMOVIC conversations
being monitored, or of UNMOVIC being penetrated.
Further, CIA and FBI officials still believe the Bush administration is
"exaggerating" information to make their political case for war.
Regarding the alleged Iraqi link with al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence
officials told the New York Times, "we just don't think it's there."
The most compelling part of Powell's presentation was his brief ending
section on the purported al Qaeda link with Iraq and on the dangers
posed by the al Zarqawi network. However, he segued disingenuously from
the accurate and frightening information about what the al Zarqawi
network could actually do with biochemical materials to the not-so-
accurate claim about its link with Iraq--which is tenuous and unproven
at best.
A key component of the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link is based on what
Powell said "detainees tell us...". That claim must be rejected. On
December 27 the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had
acknowledged detainees being beaten, roughed up, threatened with
torture by being turned over to officials of countries known to
practice even more severe torture. In such circumstances, nothing "a
detainee" says can be taken as evidence of truth given that people
being beaten or tortured will say anything to stop the pain. Similarly,
the stories of defectors cannot be relied on alone, as they have a
self-interest in exaggerating their stories and their own involvement
to guarantee access to protection and asylum.
In his conclusion, Powell said, "We wrote 1441 not in order to go to
war, we wrote 1441 to try to preserve the peace." It is certainly at
least partially true that the UN resolution was an effort to "preserve
the peace," although it is certainly not true that the U.S. wrote 1441
to preempt war. Rather, the Bush administration intended that the
resolution would serve as a first step toward war.
Finally, the "even if" rule applies. "Even if" everything Powell said
was true, there is simply not enough evidence for war. There is no
evidence of Iraq posing an imminent threat, no evidence of containment
not working. Powell is asking us to go to war--risking the lives of
100,000 Iraqis in the first weeks, hundreds or thousands of U.S. and
other troops, and political and economic chaos--because he thinks MAYBE
in the future Iraq might rebuild its weapons systems and MIGHT decide
to deploy weapons or MIGHT give those weapons to someone else who MIGHT
use them against someone we like or give them to someone else who we
don't like, and other such speculation. Nothing that Powell said should
alter the position that we should reject a war on spec.
(Phyllis Bennis is a Middle East analyst for
Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a senior analyst
at the Institute for Policy Studies.)